Hunters killed about 250,000 roosters during last pheasant hunting season. Pheasants Forever and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources expects a similar harvest this year. And quail populations should be the best since the mid-1980s.

Northwest, central and southeast Iowa are expected to offer the best pheasant hunting conditions this year, the forecast said.

Iowa might draw some hunters this year that typically go north and west. South Dakota, the nation's No. 1 pheasant hunting spot, is seeing a 45 percent decline in its pheasant populations because of bad winter, drought and habitat loss. South Dakota attracts 143,000 hunters a year, and despite the decline, it will still have more roosters than any other state, Pheasants Forever said.

In 1971, hunters bagged 1.8 million roosters, compared with fewer than 250,000 in 2016.

Iowa’s pheasant population began to suffer in the 1980s as increased corn and soybean planting replaced habitat. Enrollments in the Conservation Reserve Program helped numbers, but not for long. Fewer CRP acres and bad weather hurt populations in the late 2000s.